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Human Evolution Interest

Simon Hillson's main interest is in the biology of humans and other
mammals in the past. Bones make up the majority of archaeological
evidence for this, but he has focused particularly on teeth, because
they are tough and survive well, and because they yield a much greater
amount of information. They can be identified to species, matched up
with other teeth from different individuals (when the remains are broken
and scattered), identified as male or female, used to estimate
age-at-death, examined under the microscope to give a detailed
chronology of development in childhood (even in adults), used to
reconstruct behaviour and diet from the pattern of wear and disease, and
used to follow the path of evolution and migration through tiny
differences in size and shape. For a given research effort, teeth
therefore yield a very large amount of information.